patent
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What Every Patent License Must Have
I was going to write about the case, but Dennis Crouch explains it so much better than I could. Kimble v. Marvel Enterprises Inc., No. 11-15605 (9th Cir. July 16, 2013) Continue reading
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A Patent Owner Who Doesn’t Own the Patent
I’ve often written about the various categories of potential plaintiffs in patent infringement suits. Depending on what rights a licensee acquired, it may or may not have constitutional standing to bring a patent infringement lawsuit. A new case, CopyTele, Inc. v. E Ink Holdings, Inc., comes at it from a somewhat different angle — here,… Continue reading
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Does a Covenant Not to Sue Run With the Patent?
There is some belief in the open source community that a patent license and a covenant not to sue have different legal effect. The theory is that a license runs with the patent but that a covenant not to sue may not — in other words, if a company that has covenanted not to sue… Continue reading
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Neither Fish Nor Fowl
Ah, here’s an interesting one. The plaintiff claims to be an exclusive patent licensee, the defendant is the United States, the case properly filed in the Court of Federal Claims, and the defendant has challenged standing. But rather than the usual situation where the court is examining whether enough rights were transferred for the license… Continue reading
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Patents and Divorce
It’s divorce week here at Property, Intangible. I just reported on a case before the Supreme Court of Hawai’i that decided the relative ownership interest of divorcing spouses in copyrights created during the marriage. Now we have a case about patents, this time a federal district court case deciding standing. The statutory sections involved are… Continue reading
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The Alter Ego Owns the Patent
It’s black-letter law, as black as it gets, that in the United States a patent is initially owned by the individual inventor. As stated by the Supreme Court: “Since 1790, the patent law has operated on the premise that rights in an invention belong to the inventor.” Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior… Continue reading
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Correcting Inventorship to Enhance Your Reputation
To have constitutional standing for a claim, the remedy must provide some redress for the claimant. In the case of correcting inventorship on a patent, it generally means the correction will provide a financial advantage, although in theory it could be a reputational advantage. But Shukh v. Seagate Technology, LLC shows that’s pretty hard to… Continue reading
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Patent Ownership Not a Federal Question (at least in this case)
Is patent ownership a question of federal law? It depends. In the case of Millepede Marketing Ltd. v. Harsley, it’s not. The recent Supreme Court decision Gunn v. Minton* provides the analytical framework: a matter is one for federal jurisdiction if (a) federal law creates the cause of action asserted or (b) a federal issue… Continue reading
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For the Want of an Assignment Agreement
What we have in Anderson v. TOL, Inc. is the kind of case that makes lawyers’ heads hurt. In 2003, while Plaintiff Lloyd Anderson was in Chapter 13 bankruptcy, he formed PhoenixArts LLC, of which he was the President and sole owner. A few days later, he filed his first of three patent applications for… Continue reading
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Assignor Estoppel is Only a Shield
Here’s a bit of an odd case — too much of a stretch for the court’s taste, but I suppose a hat tip for the try, and the plaintiff got out of it without being sanctioned. The case involves “assignor estoppel.” Assignor estoppel is an equitable doctrine that prevents an assignor of a patent from… Continue reading
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